Making of Batman Desertstorm

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Hello everyone, here I will explain the few steps that were
involved in the making of ...

Making of Batman Desertstorm

Making of Batman Desertstorm

Hello everyone, here I will explain the few steps that were

involved in the making of Batman Desertstorm for the Comicon Challenge ‘09.
First I made the base mesh for all the parts separately. I usually make the head, torso and hands as one basemesh, but sculpting hard surface means subdivision levels go really high, so I decided to divide and sculpt all the parts separate, which is really helpful for focusing on details and also keeps some RAM of the system free.
I imported all the base mesh to ZBrush and one by one started sculpting on them. I went for the head first and making this a warm-up excercise, when I was all set, I started adding details and made sure this is going to be the most iconic part of the model. I wanted the head to be more like the one from darknight. I also do a bit of coloring to the model to remove the flat look of the high-poly model.

This was my first try with hard surface in ZBrush, usually I would go and retopo in max, but I had to try the ZBrush way. I was pretty happy with the head and started moving towards the torso where things were more interesting and my sculpting methods really proved well. I always go ahead and take the model to 8th division in the beginning; this makes the model really smooth like clay, making the brushes fine cuts/trims.
I use standard, move and clay brush with combinations of lazy mouse to make a rough sculpt. I keep changing the position of lights in ZBrush and checking renders and how the shapes cast self shadows. The good thing in ZBrush is if I don’t like a shape I can always change it within minutes.

Once I am happy with the shapes and volumes, I go ahead and start refining the surface. I use pinch and flatten brush a lot for this stage. At this stage I avoid making big changes since it can spoil the cleanliness of the model. If needed, I use the smooth brush to clean the area and re-sculpt it.

A lot of people ask me about the brushes and the method. I tell them to try all the brushes with Z-add and Z-Sub (with and without alt key held). They give a different effect every time you use them, you can see the small difference and understand it how to apply on your model, you can make a lot of amazing shapes. And so I did with the rest of the body. I used alphas only for the logo.

I modeled the belt strap and accessories in max, thin and small parts are pain to sculpt in ZBrush. In the end, I duplicate the arms and the legs to the other side for a final render. Final renders was done in ZBrush and composed in Photoshop.

After that I start to prepare the low-poly model. I import mid-res versions of the parts back into max and start building a low-poly mesh in max, making sure the low-poly engulfs the complete high-poly model.
The model without the cap sits around 9500 tris.

Unwraping the model and making sure almost all the parts I made separately in ZBrush are unwrapped as separate. This will make my life a lot simple when I am baking the model for Normal maps and AO.
I use Xnormal for baking Normal Maps as it can import really high poly models with no problems. I bake all the parts separate and then combine it in Photoshop. All the setting are set to default.

For AO, I use 3ds max 2009 64bit along with mental ray, unlike the 32bit, the 64bit version has no issues baking with high-poly meshes. I use a plane underneath the model, it gives a really good milky AO; again I take all the bakes in Photoshop to make the final cleanups.

The cape was an important part; I had to make sure it was functional too. I modeled the cape in max, and then tiled the section that would fold. After applying a simple normal map to it, I cleaned it up and made it look close to a cape by refining the edges and silhouette. The cape was around 500 tris.

Then applied an HSDS Modifier in max which triangulates the mesh and makes it suitable for the cloth simulation. Applying a cloth modifier with a simple cloth fall animation applied to the open cape with constraints on the neck area gives a good settled cloth. Since I didn’t change the polycount of the cape I can morph and hence any time can change between open and close cap. This was not needed for the challenge, but I like to make it functional rather than have a rigid cloth model.

In the end I rigged the model and posed it on a pedestal, added lights and rendered using Default Scanline Renderer in 3ds Max. With a mix of area and spot lights, I focus on some of the metal and interesting parts in the model and making them glow and standout in the render.

That’s it, hope you like the small explanation of the model and if you have any query, then please email me.